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Ana Palacio, a former Spanish foreign minister and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank, is a member of the Spanish Council of State, a visiting lecturer at Georgetown University, and a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the United States.

Xavier, I think that in your questions you have presented a bit of the answer—which is that nowhere is the rule of law perfect. Every society has to be vigilant in promoting the rule of law. Too often in Europe, we rest on our laurels so to speak and fail to recognize holes in our own rule of law systems. The danger, beyond the threat to free and functioning society, is that these gaps are highlighted by illiberal governments as justifying a race to the bottom. Indeed, this week we have seen Prime Minister Erdogan pointing to the use of police in the United States and Europe to justify the actions of the Turkish authorities.

Procyon, As many have noted, the content and definition of the rule of law has been elusive. I think that your proposed metric of judging the rule of law based on the level of protection of the rights of citizens is as good as any. I would refer you to a 2011 report by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe which looked into this question of what constitutes the rule of law. The Commission issued a checklist of six categories and 46 questions to evaluate the level of the rule of law in states. Taken as a whole, this lengthy review captures your single lined test. In regard to plea bargaining, it is a difficult issue. The need for some level of systemic efficiency would seem to necessitate the use of such a mechanism. Yet, clearly there is room for abuse and a necessity for some checks. Recent US Supreme Court jurisprudence has recognized this need in a series of decisions finding that criminal defendants are due effective assistance of counsel during the plea bargaining stage. Another case regarding effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining is on the docket for this term.

I have received several messages about the article that pointed to recent events in Latin America, Turkey and Hungary as further demonstrating the erosion of the rule of law. This piece was focused on political trials and in particular on the Tymoshenko case. However, the larger point regards the threat to the rule of law posed by the perversion of its institutions. The instrumentalization of law, whether through politically motivated prosecution, executive meddling in case distribution, stolen elections, media restrictions, or state-sponsored expropriation, cheapens the normative pull of law generally. I was happy to see this week that, following significant pressure both domestically and internationally, Hungary is likely to give up on some of the constitutional amendments that threaten the rule of law. This is the type of scrutiny, discussion and pressure that is needed more broadly.

I have also noticed a trend in several comments, a perception that the rule of law is solely a national issue. It is not. Clearly trials and elections and police are national institutions. However, the rule of law in today’s world is both national and international. The legitimacy that governments seek by referring to the rule of law is meant both for domestic and global audiences. It is precisely this interconnectedness that makes abuses of the rule of law such as the Tymoshenko case so insidious. The tacit acceptance of domestic perversions of legality filter up into the international community and out to a wide range of states. Thus violations of the rule of law threaten us all.

The article of Ana Palacio focus on the importance of a clear rule of law and where can lead a degeneration of the institutions when they are mis or partisan used. This is an issue and great concern on governance as long political systems in westwen democracies don't advance in real people's representation with proficient and senior politicians. Our times requiere looking back at some fundamentals in history as the foundation of the United Estates of America and the motivation for an European Union to bring peace and stability. Bureaucracy, financial elites and media have taken over the democracy, making a living and institution sequester with the agreement, or at least, passivity of the political parties wich in some countries as in Spain, are far away from people and voter's concerns. What can we expect in "younger" democracies? Which hope can we show to the countries exposed in Palacio's article ? If EU's members don't respect the rule of law and the real and independent work of institutions? How can we show to the others the path to follow ? Hopefully qualified voices as Ana Palacio and others, denounce these situations that lead to a quality decline in democracy.

Ana Palacio is very right that the international community is almost silently oblivious to the harangues of abuse that legality has taken the current turn, where the power of defendant and the power of the adjudicator is based on not what the law dictates but by the access to other worldly powers that are assumed as conduct slips from moral to the immoral.

But there are so many surprises when it comes to country specific issues.

Which country has the highest level of rule of law, where rights of citizens are best protected? Surely it should not be the country with the highest density of lawyers.

How can law be best enforced through impartial legal proceedings presided by a legal authority? Surely it should not be administered through a ‘plea bargain’ in 90% of the cases, where the system is so designed that the prosecutor has a completely passive role with no independent access to information by which to assess the strength of the case, while the parties control the outcome of the case by exercising their rights or bargain them away; the incentives for plea bargain are heavily tilted for both the parties in question and the speedy disposal of cases is the major indicator for an individual prosecutor’s proficiency.

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